Kevin Durant slams Under Armour, stock lost more than 3%
Just saying that: "Nobody wants to play in Under Armours. I'm sorry"
Sports
August 31st, 2017
August 31st, 2017
You can really tell that Kevin Durant does not pay too much attention to public statements by his Twitter profile. This time though, his words did not just produce some laughs but a stock fall. During an interview with Bill Simmons for The Ringer's podcast he just frankly said:
“Nobody wants to play in Under Armours. I’m sorry. The top kids don’t because they all play Nike”.
The result was that shares of Under Armour Inc (UAA.N) sank more than 3 percent on Tuesday, closing the day at $16.43.
With a little bit of context, Durant's statement appears less crazy and inappropriate, given that KD is a Nike frontman. Simmons was asking Durant - Maryland-native - why University of Maryland (sponsored by Under Armour) lost his power in College basketball. He answered:
“I think a lot of kids, to be honest, they don’t choose Maryland unless they play in like an Under Armour system coming up. Shoe companies have a real, real big influence on where these kids go.”
Further more, asked if he had spoken to Curry about Under Armour shoes, Durant, the 2017 Most Valuable Player in the NBA finals, said, "Everybody knows that. They just ... nobody don't want to say nothing." Curry's shoe line carried Under Armour's sales for three years, but demand for the latest collection, Curry 3, has been underwhelming. In general, the brand seems to be in a never-ending crisis this year: it lost more than 44 per cent of his value since January.
